Cat and Mouse
by HelveticaBrown
Summary: Swan Queen meet-cute AU, in which a brown tabby cat named Enrique is the hand (paw) through which Fate enacts her whims. Emma Swan and Regina Mills keep getting thrown together when Regina's cat keeps showing up on Emma's doorstep, and Emma's housemates think the whole thing is hilarious. This is unrepentantly silly tooth-rotting fluff. Previously published on AO3
1. Chapter 1

The first day she'd seen the cat, Emma hadn't really given him a second thought. He'd been lurking around the front of the house, and he'd rubbed himself up against her legs as she opened the front gate. She'd absentmindedly given him a scratch under the chin, and she'd collected the mail and headed inside.

The next day, she'd come home from college, exhausted, shucking her shoes, bag and jacket as she'd walked through the house on her way to her room. Mary Margaret had given her that signature disappointed look that mostly just made her look kind of constipated, and Emma had sighed and picked up her trail of crap, before trudging to her room. She'd turned the light on, just about ready to launch herself straight onto the bed, when she noticed the fluffy tabby cat peacefully sleeping in the middle of her bed, curled up in her favourite leather jacket.

Emma crinkled her brow in confusion, wondering if she was hallucinating. It had been an incredibly long day, with an early shift at the diner followed by classes and then a long session in the library working on her doctoral proposal. She rubbed her eyes. Still there. As she approached the bed, the cat woke up, looking at her through half-closed, sleepy eyes. He stretched and yawned, before settling back down, ready to resume his nap.

"Okay dude. This is so not okay. I don't know what you think you're doing, but I definitely didn't invite you in."

The cat regarded her sleepily. Emma approached the cat, trying to find evidence of a tag or a collar that might give her some clue to the cat's identity and where he belonged. He started purring as she combed her fingers through his mane, looking for a collar. No collar.

Emma paced the room for a minute, trying to figure out what to do, before it occurred to her to go talk to Mary Margaret. It honestly wouldn't surprise her if her housemate had impulsively picked up a rescue cat; that was the kind of girl she was. Last summer, Mary Margaret had gone through a phase of rehabilitating injured wildlife, and there'd been a series of weird and wonderful creatures in the house. It had been okay to start with, but when Ruby had come home to find a seriously pissed-looking owl glaring at her from the curtain rod in her bedroom, and had later discovered owl crap on her bed, she and Ruby had finally put their collective foot down.

She walked out into the lounge room where Mary Margaret was settling in with a glass of wine, about to watch the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice for the 376th time.

"Hey M&M. Did you, by any chance, recently acquire a brown tabby cat?"

Mary Margaret looked up at her with the soft, confused look that made most people underestimate her severely, even though, as Emma knew, she was scary smart. And occasionally, just plain scary. "A cat? No. Why do you ask?"

"Because there is currently a fluffy, brown tabby cat that has taken up residence in the middle of my bed. I was just wondering if you knew anything about it."

Mary Margaret frowned. "Of course not. I promised you and Ruby that I wouldn't bring anything else home without asking first."

Mary Margaret followed Emma to her room. "Oh. I saw him in the yard yesterday. I really wanted to give him a saucer of milk, but I thought that you and Ruby would have been cranky about me encouraging him to hang around, so I didn't."

"What are we going to do about this?"

"Does he have a tag?"

Emma shook her head. "Already checked. No collar, no tag."

"He doesn't look like he's a street cat, so there must be someone he belongs to. Maybe he's micro-chipped. We should take him to the vet tomorrow; I'll talk to David, and maybe he can check for a micro-chip."

"That's great. But what do we do with him in the meantime? I kind of want my bed back."

"We can't just turn him away Emma. Who knows what might happen. He needs to stay here."

Emma groaned. "Okay, fine. He can stay the night. But that's it."

"So, do you want to watch Pride and Prejudice with me?"

Emma shook her head. "I'm beat, and I've got an early class tomorrow. Besides, you know that Colin Firth isn't really my cup of tea."

Mary Margaret shrugged. "Your loss."

Emma got ready for bed. The cat was still sleeping on her jacket. She stood there, hands on hips, glaring at the cat.

"Come on. You need to move now. I'm going to sleep."

The cat ignored her. She reached down and tried to move him off the bed; he hooked his claws into the bedding, clinging on as she tried to move him to no avail.

"Fine, have it your way. You'd better not have fleas though."

Emma climbed under the covers, managing to get him to move over just enough for her to get in. She fell asleep, the gentle hum of his purr reverberating in her chest.

The next morning she woke up and he was gone. She always left her window half-open and he'd obviously departed the way he'd come in.

Emma didn't see the cat again in the next couple of days, and she'd all but dismissed him from her mind, until she walked into the house around lunchtime to find Ruby on the sofa watching television, a cat firmly planted on her lap.

"What's that damn cat doing here again?"

Ruby looked up. "What? Oh, you're talking about Mr Fishsticks. He was sitting out the front when I came home and he just followed me in."

The cat had jumped off Ruby's lap and was winding figure-eights around Emma's ankles.

"Mr Fishsticks? Seriously?"

Ruby shrugged. "Do you have a better name for him?"

Mary Margaret was sitting at the dining table working on her doctorate, and she chose that moment to pipe up with an opinion. "I think we should call him Heathcliff. He's so handsome and wild."

Emma groaned. "Guys, we're not calling him anything. He's not our cat."

Ruby had stage-whispered to the cat. "Don't listen to them. You'll always be my Mr Fishsticks."

After some discussion, including a further extended argument over the cat's name, Mary Margaret had called her on-again off-again boyfriend David who was working as a vet assistant at a local clinic while studying for his degree. They'd all piled into Emma's Bug and headed down to the clinic to see if David could find a micro-chip. He hadn't been able to, and none of the vets recognised the cat as a patient of the clinic.

The clinic had offered to take the cat in to transfer him to the local animal shelter, but Mary Margaret and Ruby had both looked horrified at the prospect and insisted on taking him back home. In the car on the way home, they'd argued about what to do next, badgering Emma until she agreed that they'd look after him until they managed to find his owner.

Over the next few days, Mr Fishsticks/Heathcliff/The Damn Cat had made himself at home, and gradually Mary Margaret and Ruby had acquired more and more cat swag for him. Within two weeks, he had a bed, food and water bowls and a collar and tag with his name and their home phone number engraved on it.

And even though Ruby and Mary Margaret competed constantly for his attention, he'd decided that he liked Emma best of all, despite her best efforts to ignore him. Somehow, every night he'd sneak into her bedroom while she was getting ready for bed, and she'd wake up in the morning with a purring cat on her chest. And as hard as she tried, she couldn't maintain the pretence of crankiness for long. The Damn Cat was growing on her.

* * *

Regina was furious. Her flight home had been horrific; the corporate travel consultant had screwed up and booked her in Economy, even though it was a six-hour flight. She'd tried to finagle an upgrade to Business, but the flight was fully booked. When she'd taken her seat, she'd been horrified to discover that she was seated in between a chatty 70-year-old who was flying for the first time, and a middle-aged smoker who sounded like he was trying to cough up all of his internal organs. She'd given up on the idea of trying to get any work done, and tried to get some sleep. That had been when the child behind her had decided to start kicking her seat and fighting with his sister.

She'd returned home from the airport, desperate to run herself a bath and relax with a glass of wine, only to find her house in disarray. There were bottles littering every surface, clearly the result of a party her sister had thrown. Ugh. Zelena was in her thirties, but sometimes she acted with all of the maturity of a college freshman. Regina continued to survey the damage. Most of her plants were dead, despite Zelena having promised that she'd water them. The only one that appeared to have survived intact was her cactus, which typically thrived on neglect.

Regina frowned. She would have expected that Enrique would have been winding his way around her ankles by now.

"Enrique. Enrique. Come here dear. Kiko? Kiko?" Regina started to become frantic as she called and called, and Enrique didn't come. She walked through to the enclave near the back stairs where Enrique's food and water bowl were. They were both empty, and there was a fine patina of dust in the bowls. She found a bag of his favourite treats and opened the back door, shaking the bag and calling him. After a few minutes she sat down on the back step, wondering what to do.

She opened the freezer. The carefully labelled bags of meat she'd left for Zelena to feed Enrique were still there. She was going to kill Zelena. She'd trusted her to look after Enrique and the house, and it appeared that she'd done neither. Sometimes she couldn't believe that Zelena was four years older than her. She dug around in her handbag and found her phone, angrily dialling her sister's number.

"Hey sis. What's up?"

"I just got home." Regina struggled to keep her tone even, but the rage was threatening to bubble over.

"Oh, damn. I thought you were getting in tomorrow. I was going to come by tonight and tidy up."

"Zelena, where's Enrique?"

There was a sudden silence on the other end of the line, and Regina thought for a moment that the call had dropped out. Eventually the reply came.

"He's kind of missing."

"I'm sorry, you'll have to repeat yourself. I thought heard you say that he's missing, but I don't know how I possibly could have heard that."

"Yeah, I meant to tell you, but I didn't want to worry you while you were busy with work. He's missing."

"How long?"

"Uh, since the Tuesday after you left."

Regina's tight control on her anger finally broke. "What? He's been missing for three weeks and you didn't call me? Damn it, Zelena. How could you?"

"Hey, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I thought he'd turn up. You know how cats are."

Regina hung up before she said something she'd really regret. She sat on the step, on the verge of tears. She shouldn't have trusted Zelena, but the last minute nature of her trip meant that her usual cat boarding kennel had been full. Zelena had been forced to move at short notice and had been looking for a place to stay for a couple of weeks, and she'd figured that Enrique would be more comfortable at home than at an unfamiliar kennel. It had made sense at the time.

It was too late to do anything now. All the animal shelters and vet clinics in the area would be closed and it was too dark to search the neighbourhood. All she could do was put some food out and hope that Enrique found his way home. She started cleaning up the mess, unable to relax until her house was back in order. Zelena seemed to have obliterated her wine supply – she'd found bottles in every room of the house.

She picked up another empty bottle, and suddenly the tears that had been threatening to fall came. It was the bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild that her father had given her and Daniel as a wedding gift, intended to be opened on their tenth anniversary. She sat, twisting the empty bottle about in her hands, the tears falling uncontrollably. Daniel hadn't lived to see their first anniversary, and Daddy had died two years later.

She was going to kill Zelena. And then she was going to bring her back to life and kill her all over again.

The next day, Regina had calmed down enough to start taking practical steps towards finding Enrique. She drove around to all the nearby animal shelters and vet clinics to see if he'd come through any of them, showing Enrique's picture to the staff in each. She was about to give up and start working on posters to distribute, when she decided to try one last clinic a couple of miles further out. It was a long shot, but she got lucky, and talked to a vet assistant who knew the people who had found Enrique and were taking care of him. He offered to take her over to their place at the end of his shift, and Regina, desperate to see her cat again, agreed.

* * *

David had texted Mary Margaret to warn them that he was coming by with the cat's owner. Emma answered the door to find David and a gorgeous brunette who somehow managed to be both the most attractive woman Emma could recall laying eyes on, and the most terrifying. She'd kind of been expecting someone older, frumpier, rather than this incredibly put-together, intimidating young woman.

"Hey guys. This is Regina, and your mystery boy is actually her cat. Regina, this is Emma Swan, and Mary Margaret Blanchard and Ruby Lucas are the two behind her."

Regina pushed past David, walking straight into the lounge room. "Where is he? Where is my Enrique?"

Emma shrugged and followed them inside. She muttered to herself, "The pleasure is all mine."

Ruby eyed Regina suspiciously. "Can you provide us with proof that Mr Fishsticks is your cat? After all, it's not unheard of for people to catnap cute kitties like him. How do we know that you're not here under false pretences?"

"Firstly, how dare you suggest that I'm trying to kidnap my own cat? And secondly, you called him Mr Fishsticks? What sort of ridiculous name is that?"

Emma scoffed. "And Enrique isn't a ridiculous name for a cat?"

Regina glared at her, before fumbling in her bag for her phone. She opened a slideshow of photos before handing the phone to Ruby. "If you absolutely must, you can have a look at this proof."

Ruby and Mary Margaret peered at the phone. They squealed simultaneously. "Oh my god! He was the cutest kitten ever."

Regina surveyed the room around her. "Now, where is my Kiko?" She was distracted by the sight of a pile of canned wet food next to the cat bowls in the corner.

Regina glowered at the three of them. "What on earth have you been feeding my cat? Is that Friskies? You've basically been feeding my cat on Big Macs for the last three weeks. No wonder he hasn't come home when he's been getting junk food on tap."

Emma took a step towards her, "Hey, that's way out of line. He was hungry and looking for someone to take care of him, and we did the best we could."

"Well that may be, but Enrique only eats fresh meat, mostly rabbit, along with a premium dry food. I'm surprised he hasn't been violently ill with the garbage you've been feeding him." Regina had further closed the gap between them, to the point that they were almost toe-to-toe.

Emma looked at her incredulously. "Lady, do we look like we have fresh rabbit just lying around the place? We're college students; we're not made out of money. I'm lucky if I get anything better than mystery meat processed beyond all recognition most days."

Regina sniffed haughtily. "It's very important for his dental and digestive health that he gets fresh meat regularly."

Emma rolled her eyes. "Well unfortunately, the only rabbit in this household is the battery-operated one in the top drawer of Ruby's dresser."

Mary Margaret gasped, while Ruby chuckled throatily. David just looked plain confused.

Ruby winked at Emma. "That's right. And I don't like to share."

Emma looked around the room to survey her handiwork. Mary Margaret was hiding her face in her hands, blushing tomato red, while Regina looked like she was about to have an aneurysm. Emma watched the vein throbbing in Regina's forehead with interest. There was something that just made her want to push this woman's buttons, and she was kind of satisfied with the response she'd drawn.

They were still standing up in each other's space, and Emma didn't really want to be the one to back down, but she had a meeting with a potential supervisor for her dissertation to prepare for tomorrow, and she really needed to get some work done.

She took a step back and gestured at Regina to follow. "Come on. He's probably asleep on my bed."

They walked through to her room, opened the door, and sure enough, the cat was curled up in the middle of Emma's bed, once again nesting in one of her jackets. He looked up at the sound of the door opening, and when he saw Regina, streaked across the room to wind himself about her ankles. Emma watched as Regina bent to pick the cat up and hug him to her chest, and she was genuinely surprised by the softness in Regina's expression as she cooed nonsense words over her cat. It didn't mesh at all with the impression she'd had so far of haughty superiority and cutting words.

Regina looked over at her for a moment and smiled so sweetly, that Emma imagined that she could get pretty much anyone to do anything she asked, herself included.

"Thank you for keeping my boy safe, Miss Swan."

While Emma had been puzzling over the possibility that Regina had just stepped out of a time capsule from the nineteenth century with the whole Miss Swan thing, Regina had already made a move towards the front door. And with that, Regina and Enrique/Mr Fishsticks/Heathcliff/That Damn Cat swept out of their lives, and Emma was surprised to realise that she actually wouldn't mind seeing either of them again.

* * *

As it turned out, Emma didn't have to wait long. It seemed that Enrique had chronically itchy paws and was not satisfied unless he was out exploring the neighbourhood. A week later, Enrique was back on their doorstep, waiting to be let into the house. Unlike the last time though, he stuck around for a couple of hours before heading back on his way.

It became a regular thing; sometimes she'd come home to find Enrique on the sofa watching television with Ruby or Mary Margaret, sometimes he'd have snuck in through her window and be napping in her bed. However, with the increasing frequency of Enrique's visits came the whirlwind presence of Regina once again.

Their interactions followed the same pattern as the first time they'd met. Regina would sweep in and accuse her of kidnapping her cat, and Emma would snark back, usually something along the lines of how she was simply providing safe harbour to one seeking asylum.

Ruby and Mary Margaret had started to tease her about Regina. One evening, after another one of Regina's infamous visits, they were hanging out watching music videos and drinking wine and talking crap about their non-existent love lives when Ruby had smirked at her.

"You know, Regina seems to have taken a weird kind of shine to you Emma."

Emma crinkled her brow. "Ruby, are you sure those cookies you ate earlier weren't laced with something that might make you hallucinate?"

Ruby sighed. "I should be so lucky. But seriously, she totally has a thing for you. You know she only ever comes by when she knows that you're going to be home, right? I swear she knows your schedule better than I do, and I live with you."

Emma shook her head. "It's probably just because she works similar hours to me."

"No, really, she's only come by once when you weren't home, and she barely said a word to either me or Mary Margaret, and she left five minutes later. When you're here, she always gets into an argument with you and sticks around for at least half an hour."

Mary Margaret piped up. "It's true. And there's no real reason for her to come looking for her cat anymore; he usually only visits us for a couple of hours."

Emma looked back and forth between the two of them, feeling like she was being ganged up on.

Mary Margaret continued. "You two have this whole rom-com trope thing going on. It's so Darcy and Elizabeth, so Beatrice and Benedick."

Ruby nodded. "It's kind of hot, actually, and I say that as a straight woman."

Ruby jumped to her feet and pulled Mary Margaret with her. "Come on, we'll provide a re-enactment so that Emma can see exactly what it's like."

Emma rolled her eyes. Living with a drama student and a comparative lit doctoral candidate was the worst, sometimes.

Ruby rushed out of the room, and then came storming back in, coming to a stop about two feet from Mary Margaret.

"Miss Swan, I simply cannot overlook you stealing my cat again."

Mary Margaret stiffened. "Regina. What on earth? Why would I steal your cat? He brings me nothing but trouble."

Ruby took another step forward, poking Mary Margaret in the chest. "You are a terrible influence. He's developing all manner of bad habits. Yesterday I caught him smoking catnip behind the house."

"He's a cat. Everything he does is a bad habit. And maybe he's smoking catnip because his home life is stressful."

"How dare you speak of my Kiko that way?" Ruby paused dramatically, dropping her voice as low as she could. "Unforgivable."

Ruby and Mary Margaret were right up in each other's faces now, breathing quickly.

"Unforgivable? Yeah, well so's your face, lady."

Ruby took a deep breath. "And scene." She and Mary Margaret collapsed on the floor giggling uncontrollably. Emma just stared at them for a moment, before grabbing a handful of M&Ms from a bowl on the coffee table and pelting them at her annoying housemates.

Emma's interactions with Regina continued in the pattern that her irritatingly perceptive housemates had identified, until one afternoon when Enrique had refused to come down from a tree he was perched in. They'd made it through their usual half hour of bickering, and the cat still hadn't budged, so Emma shrugged and grabbed a couple of beers from the kitchen, handing one to Regina.

"We might as well relax a bit while we wait for your damn cat to cooperate."

Regina had looked at the beer a little sceptically before accepting it. "Fine. I'm only doing this because I don't trust you to make sure he gets home safely."

Emma grunted. "Sure, whatever makes you feel better."

After that afternoon, more often than not, when Regina came around looking for Enrique, Emma would hand her a beer or a soda or a coffee, and they'd sit and chat about everyday things, like Regina's work as management consultant, or Emma's plans to do a doctorate in psychology. It was still couched in snippiness and snarkiness, but that was just how they worked.

They somehow maintained a polite fiction that Regina was just sticking around waiting until Enrique was ready to leave, usually on the pretext of not disturbing him from sleep. It was a pretty flimsy pretext though; he was a cat, so he was pretty much guaranteed to be asleep at least 90 percent of the time. Emma appreciated the excuse though; it meant she actually got to spend some time with Regina.

* * *

Emma had been napping when she was awoken by the sound of violent knocking at the front door. She'd wandered out just in time for Ruby to answer the door. Regina had pushed straight past Ruby, advancing on Emma.

"Miss Swan, I want my cat back."

Emma peered at Regina, still groggy from her nap. As usual, she was standing entirely too close, and Emma idly wondered if Ruby and Mary Margaret might actually be onto something with their teasing.

"Hey Regina. Nice to see you too. Umm, I'd really love to give your cat back, but I haven't actually seen him at all this week."

Regina had paled at that. "He hasn't been home for two days. I just assumed that he would be here."

They'd all taken a few shelters and clinics, calling around in the hopes of finding him, between them covering a fifteen mile radius. They'd all come up blank.

Regina was starting to look more distraught, and Emma moved to comfort her.

"It's okay, Regina. We'll all go out and look for him. I promise that we won't stop until we find him."

They'd split up, with Emma and Regina going in one direction, while Ruby and Mary Margaret had taken the other. Emma had been caught between cringing and laughing as Mary Margaret had walked down the street calling, "Heathcliff, Heathcliff," and Ruby had shot her a long-suffering look.

They'd been walking around for half an hour when Regina suddenly grabbed her hand and dragged her across the street. Emma started to protest before she noticed the man standing in his yard holding Enrique. They came to a stop on the other side of the fence.

"Hey! What are you doing with our cat?"

"Miss Swan, I will remind you that he is most certainly not _our_ cat. He's _my_ cat."

Emma rolled her eyes. "Fine." She glared at the scruffy guy standing in his front yard. "What are you doing with _her_ cat?"

Scruffy Guy put Enrique down, before looking at the two of them with perplexed amusement.

"Hey there. Sorry ladies, I didn't know he belonged to anybody. He's just been hanging around for the last couple of days and he didn't have a collar, so I wasn't sure what to do about him. He kept coming back, so I put some food and water out for him."

Emma realised that she and Regina were still holding hands, and she gently extricated herself from Regina's hold.

Regina glared. "Didn't you consider taking him to a vet or an animal shelter? He's micro-chipped, you know."

Scruffy Guy shrugged. "Sorry. Didn't think to do that."

Regina gave him a dismissive look before moving to fuss over Enrique, leaving Emma to talk to Scruffy Guy. They moved a few steps away, giving Regina some space.

"Hey, thanks for keeping Enrique safe. Regina would have freaked if anything happened to him."

He grinned at her. "No problems. You know, your girlfriend's kind of scary."

"She's not my girlfriend."

"Really? Could have fooled me." He winked at her.

Emma could feel herself blushing. "Seriously, she's not."

"Okay, if you say so." He extended a hand. "By the way, I'm Neal."

Emma shook his hand. "Emma."

"So I was thinking that maybe I should give you my phone number. You know, just in case Enrique goes missing again."

Emma laughed. "Okay, _she_ may not be my girlfriend, but buddy, you are so barking up the wrong tree."

He grinned at her. "I swear I'm not trying to hit on you; I can tell I wouldn't stand a chance. But your boy over there is a bit of a wanderer, and I get the feeling that this won't be the last time he shows up on my doorstep."

Emma wasn't sure why, but she actually felt like she could trust Neal. "You know what, you're right. He's not even my cat and he keeps hanging out at my place, so I should probably assume he'll do the same thing with you. We should swap numbers. It'll make it easier for both of us next time Regina goes looking for her vagabond cat."

Emma pulled out her phone and let Neal program in his number. While she was waiting, she looked over at Regina, who had stopped fussing over Enrique, and was now glaring in their direction.

Emma took back her phone as Regina marched over to her, Enrique wrapped up snugly in her arms.

"If you've quite finished flirting with this cat thief, we should get Enrique home."

Emma rolled her eyes. "I wasn't flirting." Neal winked at her again, from behind Regina's back, and Emma shot him a glare.

"Come on, Miss Swan."

"Okay already. I'm coming, I'm coming. See you later, Neal." She waved, and then had to dash to catch up to Regina who had stormed off ahead of her.

She came up alongside Regina, who glared at her. "You clearly have the most appalling taste, Miss Swan, but I suppose by now I shouldn't be surprised. After all, you were feeding Enrique on Friskies."

"Regina, not that I need to justify myself to you, but I'm not even remotely interested in Neal."

Regina made a disbelieving noise. "He gave you his phone number."

"He did. And I gave him mine, just in case your ratbag of a cat happens to go walkabouts again and wind up at his place. And that's all, because I'm gay. Gay as a sailor. As gay as the day is long. Like Kinsey-six gay. If I played baseball, I would totally be hitting a homo run.

"And yes, my taste is obviously pretty appalling, because even though you're kind of mean to me sometimes, and even though you refuse to call me by my first name, which is weird by the way, I actually really like you."

Regina stopped dead and just gaped at her.

Emma continued. "And I'd kind of like to spend some time with you that doesn't revolve around your ridiculous cat."

"He is not ridiculous!" Regina started walking quickly again, and Emma almost had to run to keep up with her.

"Well yes, he is. He's a cat, and therefore he's inherently ridiculous. If he sees a box, he's irresistibly compelled to sit in it. And I mean, really, he holds his tail down when he bathes it, because he thinks it's trying to escape.

"But that's beside the point. Despite his ridiculousness, the little furball has kind of grown on me, not least because shortly after he wandered into my life, you followed. And I guess, what I'm saying is that you don't need to use Enrique as an excuse to see me. Enrique can be safely curled up asleep at home, and you're welcome to come bang on my door and embarrass me by telling me and any of the neighbours who care to listen how inadequate I am as a babysitter for your cat."

While Emma had been saying her piece, they had arrived back at her house, and Regina immediately loaded Enrique into the cat crate in her back seat, while Emma stood on the path awkwardly, wondering if she'd seriously misread things. She was pretty sure she had, when Regina had hopped into the car and driven off with just a quick thank you and a wave.

She called Mary Margaret to let her know that Enrique was safe and sound, and headed inside, feeling despondent.

* * *

Regina drove straight home, her thoughts a swirling mass of confusion. She'd almost run two red lights in the short distance, and she was glad when she made it home in one piece. Honestly, she hadn't been expecting Emma's confession; she knew she could be prickly, and she was accustomed to people responding accordingly, never getting too close. And generally, she was fine with that, but Emma Swan had somehow gotten under her skin, and it seemed that she'd somehow gotten under hers in turn.

Since Daniel, there hadn't been anyone serious; the occasional fling, but they'd been mere distractions. This was different. And for the first time in what seemed like forever, she allowed herself to want more. She wanted to see that goofy smile that Emma reserved for her friends, and occasionally Regina, all the time. She wanted to run her fingers through blonde curls, and feel the softness and the strength of Emma's body pressed against her own. And more than anything, she wanted to see the desire she felt reflected back at her in green eyes.

"Kiko, be good for me. There's something I need to do, and it can't wait a moment longer."

Regina freshened up her make-up and then hopped in her car. This time, she was pretty sure she'd broken the speed limit the whole way and that she'd be getting a ticket in the mail.

She hurried up the path and banged on the door. It was ridiculous that they didn't have a door bell that worked, and it was also ridiculous that she was having that thought at this very moment.

Emma answered the door, and the crinkled confusion in her brow as she saw Regina was altogether too adorable. Regina desperately wanted to smooth the lines with her fingers, catalogue every expression with her hands.

"I thought…"

Regina smiled softly. "You asked me to come by without my cat. So I'm here, no excuses."

Emma's eyes widened. "Oh."

Emma had taken a step back, and Regina took the opportunity to step inside and close the door behind her.

Regina took a step closer and leaned in until her lips were almost touching Emma's ear. She whispered, "Emma, you are the best babysitter my cat has ever had." Regina felt a thrill as Emma shuddered against her. She pulled back a little to look at her properly. Emma's lips were parted, her eyes wide and her breathing shallow.

"Regina, I swear if you don't kiss me now…"

Regina didn't let her finish whatever threat she intended, bringing a hand up to tangle in Emma's hair and pressing her against the wall, kissing her until she felt her smile against her lips. She pulled back minutely, before moving in to capture Emma's lips again. She was distracted by the sound of applause and cheering, and realised that Emma's irritating housemates were peeking around the corner at them.

Emma grinned at her. "Shall we take this away from the live studio audience? I have a bedroom with a door and everything, just down the hall."

"Lead the way."


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: There's one more chapter after this that I'll upload tomorrow. There's only so much messing around with formatting I can handle at once.

* * *

Regina answered the door still dressed in her work clothes. Emma drank in the sight of her. She was wearing a white button-down with a tailored pin-stripe vest and black pants, and Emma was suddenly very taken with the idea of peeling those layers away slowly. She was pretty sure this was her favourite outfit of Regina's. Although there was the burgundy silk blouse that brought out her skin-tone beautifully. And the cream silk that gave the slightest peek at the lace concealed beneath it. Ooh, and that grey dress that showed her legs off to perfection. Okay, so pretty much anything that Regina wore was her favourite, because she looked perfect in everything.

Emma was disturbed from her reverie as the subject of her thoughts arched a brow sardonically at her, and asked her if she was planning to stand on the doorstep all night.

Emma stepped inside, closing the door behind her. "How'd the big meeting go today?"

"The board came around to my way of thinking. Eventually." Her mouth quirked up slightly at the edges.

Emma snorted. "Of course they did. Bet they folded like a cheap lawn chair."

Regina gave her a brilliant smile. "Indeed. It was rather satisfying."

Emma felt a twinge of arousal low in her abdomen. There was just something so _satisfying_ about the way Regina said certain words. She was pretty sure that she could listen to her read the dictionary out loud and she'd find it impossibly sexy, though.

She brought a hand up to Regina's face, tucking her hair back behind her ear, before tracing Regina's lips with her thumb. "I missed you. It's been far too long since I've seen you."

Regina rolled her eyes. "It's been two days. Hardly an eternity."

"Well it felt like that to me."

Regina sighed. "Alright. I'll admit that I missed you too."

Emma grinned. "Was that so hard to say?"

Emma leaned in and replaced her thumb with her lips, the contact light at first, but quickly deepening as Regina responded. She pressed Regina back against the wall, one hand cupping her cheek, the other tracing patterns up and down the small of her back.

Kissing Regina was pretty much the most awesome thing ever, as far as Emma was concerned. She loved losing herself in soft, full lips, she loved Regina's clever tongue and teeth that teased her just the right amount, she loved the satisfied little sounds that Regina made.

Emma tilted her head to kiss her way down the side of Regina's neck. Regina took that opportunity to speak. "I need to put dinner in the oven."

Emma continued to trail kisses down the column of Regina's throat. "Mmm. Dinner can wait. I'm not hungry for food."

Emma pulled back slightly, and started to undo the top button on Regina's waistcoat. "Have I mentioned how insanely hot you look today? If you'd told me that I needed to restructure something, I wouldn't have even tried to argue. I would have been way too distracted."

Regina chuckled throatily. "You really are too sweet, dear."

They made their way to Regina's bedroom, slowly, stopping every couple of feet to continue kissing. Emma shot Enrique a look as they passed him in the hall. _Not tonight, buddy. Please._

Emma kneeled on the bed, between Regina's legs and worked her way down the buttons of Regina's shirt. Regina took the opportunity to run her hands up and down Emma's torso, through the thin material of her tank top, featherlight touches against her ribs, the swell of her breasts, occasionally teasing her nipples. By the time she reached the last two buttons of Regina's shirt, Emma could barely think straight and her hands shook clumsily as she tried to work those last obstacles.

She'd just started to push Regina's shirt off her shoulders, when Enrique started crying at the door. Emma tried to ignore him for a moment, hoping he'd go away, but Regina brought her hands up to still Emma's, before getting up to open the door. Emma groaned. This was the sixth time that Enrique had managed to bring a premature end to proceedings, not that she was counting or anything.

* * *

Emma was pretty sure she was going to need a month of cold showers. After Enrique had managed to thoroughly kill the mood once again, they'd had dinner together. Regina had an early meeting out of town the following morning, so Emma had left shortly after dinner. She walked into the house and was greeted with shrieks from Ruby and Mary Margaret. "EMMA! We have tequila and Ryan Gosling movies."

Mary Margaret stared at her creepily, and for a moment Emma wondered if her housemate was genuinely unhinged. "Join us, Emma. Join us now."

Emma tried to make her way to her bedroom, but Ruby jumped up from the patch of floor in front of the sofa and dragged her back in to the lounge room. "Come on Emma. We've both been single for months. We need to live vicariously through the stories of your sexual exploits. Come get drunk with us and tell us all the nasty, filthy details."

Mary Margaret blushed. "Or even just the PG-rated version."

Emma flopped gracelessly onto the sofa. She sighed. "There pretty much is only a PG-rated version. Every time things start to escalate, the damn cat comes and stares at us and it creeps me out. Or, if we're in her bedroom, he starts meowing and scratching at the door and throwing himself at it. And Regina just stops things every time and opens the door. He's even done it over here a couple of times. It's uncanny how he seems to know exactly when I'm about to unhook her bra."

Ruby frowned for a moment before letting her face go blank. She experimentally licked the side of her hand before swiping it across her hairline. "Okay, so I'm a cat. I like doing cat things like sleeping and climbing trees and playing with ribbon. I'm a cat, and suddenly my two favourite humans are in the same place at the same time and that makes me happy. I'm a purry, content cat, safe, warm and secure. But then, my two favourite humans are shutting me out. I'm unhappy. I'm depressed. I feel like I'm not wanted anymore. So I keep trying to get their attention. I don't want them to forget about me."

Emma sighed. "I hate it when you go all method on us, but I can't dispute your logic. But surely Regina would just ignore him if she was into it. I just want to know if I should be worried. I mean, is this normal? We've been seeing each other for six weeks and I've barely even made it to second base. I feel like I'm back in high school. I've don't think I've ever waited this long to sleep with someone.

Ruby smirked at her. "That's cos you're a super stud. Emma Swan walks into a room and all the ladies immediately are bereft of their panties."

Mary Margaret looked pensive. "Maybe she's just not ready."

Emma frowned. "How long do you normally wait to sleep with someone?"

Ruby grinned. "Oh, I always sleep with them on the first date. How else would I know whether or not I should agree to a second date?" Mary Margaret looked shocked. "Kidding! Seriously, it depends. Sometimes the chemistry's there, and everything just falls into place and you know that no matter what, you'll be falling into bed with them eventually, so why delay the inevitable. Others, it takes a bit longer to know for sure. But you also don't want to wait too long, get emotionally invested and then find out they're bad in bed."

"I don't really have that much experience, having been with David most of the time since we were thirteen, but I slept with Victor after our second date."

Ruby whooped with excitement. "Oh, you shameless hussy! I would never have guessed. I thought you were just having tea parties and playing checkers."

Emma poured herself a shot of tequila and downed it with a grimace. "Maybe she's just not that into me. I just can't get her out of my head, so maybe I'm coming on too strong, seeing interest that isn't there."

Ruby shook her head. "No way. She's definitely into you."

Emma poured herself another shot. "I love spending time with her, being with her. But I also think I'm about to die of sexual frustration."

Ruby grinned. "I did notice that you've been going through batteries like crazy the last few weeks."

Emma leaned back, and her head hit the wall with a thump. "I think I'm about to burn out the motor in my vibrator, and it's not even remotely helping."

Mary Margaret looked at her pointedly. "Well it's certainly not helping my sleep. We share a wall, you know."

"So do you think that there are different standards for gay women and straight women around when it's normal to sleep with someone? I think Regina's mostly been involved with men before, so maybe I'm just not used to the rules that she plays by."

Mary Margaret frowned. "Well, neither Ruby or I can really speak with any authority about what the rules are between two women, but it's usually the done thing to wait at least three dates before sleeping with a guy. I think it's kind of a safety thing."

Ruby poured herself a shot. "Don't make assumptions, M&M. I once had my own stroll on the Sapphic side of the street, you know. My very own Katy Perry moment."

"Ruby, I don't think kissing practice when we were ten counts."

Emma snorted. "You guys did that? I didn't think that was really a thing."

"Ruby told me that she'd learned all she could from Theodore Bear, and that she needed a real human subject to practise on. I, being the wonderful friend that I am, agreed."

Ruby grinned. "Don't pretend that I'm the only one who benefited from it. But okay, twice, if I count you Mary Margaret."

Emma and Mary Margaret both looked at Ruby, shouting questions over each other. "Who? When? Why have you never told us about this before?"

Ruby had a faraway look in her eyes. "Do you remember Belle French?"

Mary Margaret frowned. "Oh, the Australian girl, right? Ancient history major?"

"Mmm… that's her. We had a couple of classes together in sophomore year, and started hanging out a lot when you and David had just got back together. This one evening, just before midterms, we had this sweet little interlude in the library stacks. I came upon her trying to reach a book on a high shelf and got it down for her. She just looked up at me with those big blue eyes, and the softest, sweetest smile and then we kissed. She smelled amazing, like vanilla and old books."

Mary Margaret practically swooned. "Oh my, that is so romantic. What happened next?"

Ruby sighed. "Nothing. I heard on the grapevine that she was involved with Dean Gold, and I valued my hide a little too much to even consider muscling in on his territory. We kind of stopped hanging out and I mooned over her from a distance for a little while, and then I met Billy and spent the next few months getting over her in the most enjoyable way possible."

Emma peered at her in bemusement, as if the puddle she'd stepped in had actually turned out to be a foot deep. "I always thought you were 100 percent straight."

"I guess I'm 99 percent straight. I've never had even the slightest inclination towards women before or since then. There was just something about her though… she kind of feels like the one who got away."

Mary Margaret looked like she was about to cry. "That's so tragic. Have you spoken to her since then?"

"No. She transferred schools at the end of sophomore year. I heard later the Dean got a position at another school and he pulled some strings to get her a spot there."

Emma had a brilliant idea, or at least the kind of idea that sounds brilliant after a third of a bottle of tequila. "We should totally Facebook stalk her."

Mary Margaret clapped her hands excitedly. "I'll get my laptop."

Ruby pouted at them both. "I'm so not drunk enough for this." She picked up the now empty bottle of tequila, tilting it until one last drop hit her tongue. "You need to fetch me more to drink if we're going to do this."

* * *

A couple of days later, Emma came home from the library to find her housemates drinking wine. They were well on their way to finishing a second bottle, and things were getting pretty rowdy.

"Emma! EMMA! We made you a picture book to help explain things to Enrique." Mary Margaret was jumping up and down on the sofa, waving her wine glass around excitedly.

Emma sighed. "Don't you have a doctorate to work on, M&M?"

Mary Margaret sighed. "Yeah. But this chapter has really been kicking my behind. I needed a break."

Emma frowned as Ruby handed her the "book". It was a few sheets of A4 copy paper folded in half, with a semi-circular red wine stain on the front, and a badly drawn picture that could have been a cat or a frog or possibly an elephant. She read the title out loud. " _Enrique has two mommies: An educational adventure for curious felines_."

Ruby grinned. "The alternative title was: " _How to tell your cat there's only room for two pussies in this bed_. Mary Margaret vetoed it though."

Emma groaned. "You guys are the worst." She flicked through the book. "Oh my God! You drew pornographic stick figure versions of Regina and me? What are we even supposed to be doing in this picture? I'm pretty sure that's not even anatomically possible. And why are my boobs so small?" Emma had so many questions, and she was pretty sure that none of the answers would make any sense while she was sober.

She collapsed into an armchair. "You guys better have left some wine for me."

Two more bottles of wine later, they'd cooked up a crazy scheme involving Ruby and Mary Margaret kidnapping Enrique and holding him hostage, while Emma completed the final stages of (as Ruby called it) Operation Swan Muff-dive.

If that was the best that they could come up with, Emma was pretty sure that she was doomed to a very short life characterised by extreme sexual frustration.

* * *

Emma watched as Regina poured the wine, wondering how to broach the topic that was weighing on her mind.

Regina looked at her and smiled softly as she handed Emma a glass. "You're quiet tonight." She took a seat at the other end of the sofa.

"Yeah. Just got a bit on my mind at the moment." Emma swirled the wine in her glass, before taking a sip. _God that was good_. There were definitely benefits associated with dating someone with a real job, not least of which was drinking wine that wasn't straight out of the bargain bin.

"Do you want to tell me about it, dear? Maybe I can help."

Emma came to a decision. She needed to know the score sooner rather than later, before she was in too deep. She smiled wryly to herself. _Be realistic, Emma, you're already in way over your head._

"This is kind of kind of hard to say…"

Regina frowned. "Should I be worried about what you're going to say next?"

Emma shook her head. "No. Honestly, I'm more worried about what you're going to say." Emma drew in a deep breath. _Okay, here goes nothing…_

"Are you actually attracted to me? Like do you want me the way I want you, because when I'm around you, touching you, being close to you is all I can think about, but you seem to be holding back. And then anytime we're together, your cat interrupts, and suddenly you can't get away from me fast enough. I just want to know if I'm being paranoid, or if you're just not that into me. It's okay if you're not; I just need to know."

Regina pressed her lips together, and her eyes were suddenly suspiciously bright. "It's just been me and Enrique for a long time, and I'm not used to sharing my life with someone else. And Enrique is kind of a link to the past for me. My father got him for me shortly after my husband died, and Enrique was like a lifeline. He pulled me out of the darkest place I've ever been, a small joy in a world that I was sure could only bring me pain. And then my father died a couple of years later, and once again Enrique was my lifeline. I've never really learned to let go of that."

Emma wanted to slap herself. _So inconsiderate, so selfish._ She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to look at Regina for a moment."I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pushed."

"Emma. Look at me. You had every right to ask. And you're right, I have in some ways been using Enrique as an excuse. The truth is, I haven't been involved with a woman since college, and we were both horribly inexperienced."

Regina shifted closer to her on the sofa and put a hand on her knee. "And I am so intensely attracted to you that every time you touch me I turn into a nervous wreck. I don't want to mess this up."

Emma carefully placed her wine glass on the coffee table and then turned back to face Regina. She took Regina's hands in her own and kissed each knuckle in turn, and then the palms of her hands.

"Believe me, Regina, there is absolutely no way you could mess this up. We could lie in bed and you could read me Vogon poetry and I'd still think it was the most amazing thing ever."

Regina laughed, and Emma grinned at her in relief.

"Vogon poetry? Now I am rather worried that you might have a kinky side that I'm not ready for."

Emma kissed her softly. "We'll do this at your pace. And I promise, I usually don't introduce Vogon poetry until I've been seeing someone for at least a year."

Later, after dinner, they retired to Regina's bedroom once again. And this time, when Enrique commenced his customary protest, Regina turned the music up. Emma smiled as she kissed her way down Regina's torso, mapping the curves and planes of smooth skin, storing away the sounds that Regina made as she explored each new frontier.

And as Emma curled her fingers inside Regina, Emma was pretty sure that she needed to see this sight of Regina with her head thrown back, eyes half-closed, biting her lower lip, at least once a day. Preferably more often. Regina Mills was the kind of woman that inspired poets to write sonnets dedicated to the perfection of the curve of her throat, and artists spent years mixing just the right colour to capture the vibrancy of her eyes. Emma wasn't a poet or an artist, but Regina kind of made her want to be.

She idly wondered about the feasibility of putting Enrique into boarding school, as Regina lay gasping beside her. What about in Switzerland. Did they have boarding schools for cats?

Emma was taken by surprise as Regina suddenly straddled her and commenced a languid exploration of her body, and she stopped thinking completely as Regina teased climax after climax out of her with her clever tongue.

Emma slumped to the bed, boneless. "Oh my God. That was absolutely amazing, babe."

Regina's grin in response, as she crawled back up the bed, could only be described as predatory. "I'm glad you enjoyed yourself dear, because if you call me _babe_ again, that is likely to be your last memory of this life."

Emma laughed. "Okay, so not babe. What about Pookie? Buttercup? Muffin? Honeybun? Sweetpea? Mon petit chou? Sugartits?"

Emma laughed even harder as Regina smacked her on the butt. "Okay. Mistress then. Definitely Mistress."

Regina rolled her eyes and pulled the covers up over them both. "What am I going to do with you?"

"I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that whatever it is, I'll like it."

Emma curled up against Regina's back, a lazy arm slung over her waist. She kissed the junction of Regina's neck and shoulder and decided that this was quite possibly the most perfect moment of her life so far.


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's note: This is the final part. I may revisit the story again at some point in the future, but I have no immediate plans to do so. Then again, it was originally intended to be a one shot, but then I wound up writing two more parts. Hope you enjoy this chapter - it's a little different to the first two._

 _Also note that this story was previously published on AO3._

* * *

Emma woke up curled around Enrique. Regina had been away for three weeks, and the bed had felt so lonely and empty that Emma had allowed the cat to sleep with her. Even though they'd been together for more than three years and Regina had to travel at least once every couple of months, Emma still wasn't used to her absences. However, Regina was due to get back late this afternoon, and Emma was excited and rather nervous. She hadn't slept at all well last night, and she was tempted to linger in bed a little bit longer. Her plans for today wouldn't wait, though; she needed to make sure that everything was in place for the evening.

She completed her errands as quickly as she could and was now pacing a hole in the kitchen floor, talking half to the cat and half to herself.

She bent down to pet Enrique and addressed him directly. "Okay, Enrique, Operation Falling Star is a go. Your Mom is going to be home in five hours, and everything has to be absolutely perfect. You know your job, right?"

He purred and rubbed himself against her ankles.

"Okay, that's a good boy. We're just going to do a bit of a dress rehearsal now. I want to see how this ribbon looks around your neck."

Emma tied the ribbon around Enrique's neck and stood up and looked critically at the cat. "Hmm… not bad. Red looks good on you. Okay, so this is how it'll go down: I'm going to come inside under some pretext, like refilling the ice bucket, and then I'll put the ribbon on you, and then you come out with me looking cute, and then we see what your Mom says. Hopefully, it'll be yes."

She continued to pace. "Okay, so I'm going to practise my speech and I want you to tell me what you think."

She rambled on for several minutes, before eventually realising that Enrique was no longer in the kitchen.

"Damn it, cat. Where the hell are you?"

She looked for him, growing increasingly frantic, until he came trotting back into the house about half an hour later.

"Oh, thank God." Then she looked a little closer and started to panic. "Where's the ribbon, Enrique?"

Emma sat on the floor, leaning against the pantry. _Oh shit, oh shit._ She did the only thing she could think of: called for help.

"Hey Ruby."

 _"Hey Em, what's up?"_

"I have a small crisis and I need your help right now."

There was a sigh from the other end of the line. _"I'm at an audition. Can it wait?"_

"I lost the ring."

 _"Oh… Where are you?"_

"At home."

 _"Okay, I'll be there soon."_

Emma was still sitting on the kitchen floor, muttering to herself, when Ruby showed up with Mary Margaret in tow.

"Emma! What happened?"

"I lost the ring."

"How? Where?" Ruby and Mary Margaret were both shouting at her, and Emma could barely make sense of it all.

She tried to focus. "I don't know. I was doing a dress rehearsal with Enrique. I tied the ribbon around his neck, and then he slipped out while I was distracted. He came back and the ribbon and the ring were gone."

Ruby groaned. "Oh, Em. Why on earth did you trust him with the ring? He's slipped at least a dozen collars just this year."

Emma grimaced. "I know, I know. But he means so much to Regina, and I figured I needed all the help I could get, that maybe the added cuteness would help seal the deal."

Mary Margaret sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulder. "I get it and I think it's terribly romantic. We'll find it, even if we have to turn the whole neighbourhood upside down."

Emma felt tears prick at her eyes. "You guys are the best. And Ruby, I'm sorry about the audition. I'll make it up to you however I can."

Ruby shook her head. "It's okay. It was just a stupid tampon commercial. I was going to have to run down a beach and pretend to be happy about having my period. And I'm pretty sure they were going to give it to this blonde girl who honest-to-god looked like a real, live Powerpuff Girl, anyway."

They searched the house systematically, checking all the nooks and crannies that the cat might possibly have got into. By the end, the house looked like a bombsite, and Emma suspected that Regina would probably say no, anyway, once she caught a glimpse of her normally immaculate house. And they still had nothing. They moved into the yard and scoured every inch. Finally, Mary Margaret caught sight of a glimmer of light from a tree at the back of the yard. The ring and the ribbon were suspended from a branch, about 15 feet off the ground.

They stood there at the base of the tree contemplating their approach. Mary Margaret ran inside and grabbed a broom and a chair, and Ruby tried to reach it. Unfortunately, there were too many branches in the way, and she couldn't quite get to it.

Emma sighed. There was no other option. "Give me a boost, guys. I'm going in."

Emma climbed the tree, carefully making her way branch to branch. She finally made it within reach of the ribbon, grabbing at it desperately, and stashing it in her pocket straight away. Unfortunately, the branch that was more than adequate to support the weight of a cat was not quite up to the task of supporting a fully-grown woman. The branch broke with a sickening crack, and Emma knew a moment of excruciating pain and then nothingness.

* * *

Regina is tired and cranky, and desperate to get home. Three weeks living out of a hotel room, and she is dying to sleep in her own bed. Three weeks of 14-hour days of coddling idiots who should know better, of painful networking drinks, of running interference between executives and their unhappy staff. Three weeks of keeping a straight face while using words like _synergy_ and _buy-in_ and _ownership_ and wondering just when it was she sold her soul for a corner office. Three weeks of missing Emma and her sure hands and knowing grin that have taught her not to take herself too seriously. Three weeks of missing arms that wrap around her and make her feel safe and loved.

The plane is held on the tarmac for what seems an eternity, before they are allowed to exit to the terminal. She collects her luggage and joins the line for a taxi, which seems interminably long. As she waits, she remembers to check her messages: work, work, dentist appointment, Mary Margaret. _Mary Margaret?_

 _"Hi Regina, it's Mary Margaret. There's been an accident. Emma's been taken to A &E at St Andrews."_

The time code on the message is 4:00pm; about an hour ago. She tries to call back, and curses as it keeps going straight to voicemail. _She must not have any reception._ She leaves a voicemail demanding that Mary Margaret call her back straight away. She tries calling the hospital direct, and ricochets around the switchboard, no one able to give her answers. She tries Mary Margaret again, and then has to clamp down on the urge to throw her phone, to smash it to smithereens when the battery runs out.

Regina finally gets a taxi, and then traffic is crawling so slowly that she swears at the driver. She knows it's not his fault, but there's a pressure building and building and building inside her and she's afraid that if she doesn't release it somehow, her heart won't have enough strength to pump against it and her lungs won't have enough room to expand in her chest. The air suddenly feels liquid and heavy, and she chokes on her words as she urges the driver onwards, faster.

She's spent too much time in hospitals in her 34 years, too much time in waiting rooms, too much time talking to doctors and hearing bad news. Too much time drinking shitty vending machine coffee, too much time sleeping in uncomfortable chairs, too much time listening to platitudinous expressions of sympathy that can't even begin to describe or comprehend her pain.

She's experienced the pain of sudden wrenching loss, like an arm or a leg being torn off, and the enduring sense that there's something missing, a constant ghostly reminder of what should have been there. A fall from a horse, Daniel getting up laughing and smiling at his own clumsiness. Hours later, collapse. _Extradural haematoma._ The decision to withdraw extraordinary measures. Organ harvesters hovering, waiting like so many vultures to take away a strong, healthy heart, lungs, kidneys, and even the eyes she's spent so-much-but-still-not-enough time gazing into. _Just think of all the good he's doing._

She's also known the drip-drip-drip corrosiveness of slow, inexorable decline. _Cancer._ Her father, portly and cheerful, gradually wasting away, his warm smile being replaced with sunken, sallow cheeks and his thinning hair falling out completely. The smell of vomit and decay. _Multiple metastases._ Nothing to do except make him more comfortable, and wait and wait and wait for Death to finally show him the mercy that's been lacking for the past two years.

As she sits there in traffic, she's terrified of the scene that will greet her when she arrives at the hospital. The lithe, muscular body that she's spent so much time learning lying broken and small on crisp, white sheets. The rhythmic hiss of a ventilator pushing air into lungs unable to work on their own. The beep of monitors. The frantic activity of an emergency response team trying to force life back into a shell that it's already fled.

She'd spent six years enclosing herself in layer-upon-layer-upon-layer of protection, hardening herself until she could be sure that nothing could hurt her ever again. But Emma Swan had somehow found a way in, through armour she'd thought was impenetrable, burrowing through until she found softness that Regina had thought was long gone. And now she's wondering if that chink in her armour is going to see her cut to the core once again, sliced so deeply that there won't be anything left except ugly, knotted scars.

She remembers reading that a heart scarred too deeply cannot beat with enough strength to keep the body alive. She wonders what her heart looks like; whether loss and suffering have made her heart become fibrous and scarred rather than the vibrant, vital organ it should be and whether it will have enough life left in it to keep beating tomorrow.

She reads the advertisement on the back of the seat in front of her over and over again, trying to cling to anything that might distract her. _Nicotine-replacement gum. Minty fresh. Guaranteed to help you quit._ No matter how many times she reads it, the words don't make any sense to her.

Regina throws a handful of bills at the driver and runs into the hospital, a suitcase trailing in her wake. She terrorises a couple of nurses until they point her in the direction of Emma's room. She slows as she walks down the hall, the urgency of a moment ago gone as the prospect of _knowing_ looms ever closer. The sense of dread is welling up, and Regina feels like she's drowning.

And then she hears Emma's voice.

* * *

"Ruby, look. Elvis is here and he's wearing a tutu. He wants to dance with me. He wants to dance with you too."

Regina burst into the room. Emma was lying on a bed, one arm in a cast, and an IV line running into the other, staring at a fixed spot on the wall. "Emma! Oh my God, are you okay?"

"And look, Regina's here too! Regina! The aliens are coming down with the meteor shower tonight and they're going to make you their queen. They sought out the fairest in the land, and it turns out that the fairest of the fair is you."

She smiled gently at Emma, trying to stave off the worry that had been threatening to overwhelm her. "Is that so, dear? Perhaps you can tell me more about that in a minute, after I've spoken to Ruby."

She turned to Ruby and growled, "You are going to tell me what is going on this instant. And you better not have had anything to do with this."

Ruby sighed audibly. "Hi Regina. Emma fell out of a tree. She has a broken arm, a couple of cracked ribs and a few cuts and bruises. Right now, as you've probably guessed, she is ridiculously high on morphine. The doctor should be back to check on her shortly."

"What the hell was she doing up a tree?" Regina snarled.

"An excellent question and one that you should probably ask her. Maybe wait until she's stopped seeing goblins and aliens and long-dead rock and roll musicians."

In the background, Emma was chatting animatedly to the IV stand. "Oh wow! Hi Lucy Lawless. What are you doing here? You know, you're the second-hottest woman I've ever seen. You shouldn't be jealous though, you're second only to Regina, the love of my life. Hey, can you keep a secret? I'm asking her to marry me tonight. There's gonna be a meteor shower and champagne, and this weird French cheese that Regina likes that smells like feet and so much other awesome stuff. It's gonna be perfect."

Mary Margaret walked in at the tail end of Emma's monologue, carrying two coffees. She handed one to Ruby and the other to Regina. "I'm sure you need this more than I do."

That small act of kindness was what finally broke her. The cup slipped from her grasp and spilled its contents all over the floor, and Regina's body was wracked with sobs. She was dimly aware of Mary Margaret leading her to a chair, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. The next little while passed her by in a blur, and it was only with the entrance of the doctor that she was able to force herself back towards some kind of equilibrium.

 _Overnight for observation. Just a precaution. We're confident that she'll be going home tomorrow._

* * *

Regina was half-dozing when she heard Emma clear her throat. She opened her eyes to see Emma looking at her.

Emma's voice was scratchy as she spoke. "Hey Regina."

"How are you feeling?"

Emma laughed and then winced with pain. "Honestly? Like I got run over by a truck."

Regina struggled to keep her tone neutral. "You scared me."

"I'm sorry."

"What were you thinking?"

Emma smiled ruefully. "That I wanted a perfect evening with you, and I wasn't going to let anything get in the way of that." She paused, peering up at her uncertainly. "I guess you've heard about the plan for last night?"

"You told Lucy Lawless about it in great detail and Mary Margaret filled me in on the rest." Regina sighed. "Emma… I would have said yes, even without the meteor shower and the champagne and the string quartet, or whatever else it was that you had planned."

Regina rolled her eyes as Emma muttered, "Note to self: string quartet." She looked up at Regina with hope in her eyes. "And if I asked you now?"

"I'd tell you to ask me again when the fear of losing you isn't so fresh."

Emma's face fell. "Oh. Does that mean…"

Regina cupped Emma's cheek. "It means I love you and I need you, but I just need some time to piece myself back together again." Regina gently brushed a lock of hair back from Emma's forehead. "Ask me again soon. I don't need grand, romantic gestures, I just need you safe and well and with me always."


End file.
